Neural basis for the production and perception of prosody

Prosody, the melody and intonation of speech, is an important component of human communication and social interaction. The aim of this project is to explore the application of recent approaches and concepts in human brain mapping to the study of perception and production of prosody. The initial goal of the research is to determine the degree to which perception and production of prosody rely on shared neural systems. This will be determined by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of regions of overlap in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during the perception and production of a meaningless phrase in different prosodic intonations. A second goal is to determine individual differences in this shared circuitry for perception and production. Understanding the neural basis of prosody will help elucidate the neurobiology of non-verbal communication, and by extension, of social communication. This is important for better understanding core deficits of socially isolating psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as autism and traumatic head injury.